I think it's best to leave it cryptic because this isn't really a forum to be fully critical of vendors, and since I don't hate Royal Puerh or TeaUrchin, and especially since I have little direct experience with Royal Puerh products, I don't think I want to expound on the reasoning.

China Flair and PurePuer are places with very poor quality/price ratios, although China Flair looks to have at least decent cakes if dramatically overpriced.

--Dang, looking at China Flair--they don't seem to have raised their prices, so the p/q has been improving over the years...And they have interesting tea, if you're willing to pay very big money for it...I'd love to try that '90s Songpinhao, and the price for a cake isn't totally unreasonable, if it's in good condition.

shah82 wrote:I think it's best to leave it cryptic because this isn't really a forum to be fully critical of vendors, and since I don't hate Royal Puerh or TeaUrchin, and especially since I have little direct experience with Royal Puerh products, I don't think I want to expound on the reasoning.

China Flair and PurePuer are places with very poor quality/price ratios, although China Flair looks to have at least decent cakes if dramatically overpriced.

--Dang, looking at China Flair--they don't seem to have raised their prices, so the p/q has been improving over the years...And they have interesting tea, if you're willing to pay very big money for it...I'd love to try that '90s Songpinhao, and the price for a cake isn't totally unreasonable, if it's in good condition.

That's what lead to me ask, because I didn't find the songping and zhenchuanyahao overpriced at all. I'm getting used to seeing worse. I assumed you meant their tea had poor storage overall. Anyway, thanks!

About the same as the only other western reseller that had it? The only (much) cheaper price I've seen lately was in a taiwanese auction, but that was for a full tong and it was a while ago actually. (I don't know about the storage of either this or the auction's also.)

Sorry to op for all this off-topic, I'm actually interested but unfortunately most of my better stuff is stashed away in China. I'll see if I can find something nice though.

I'd go with the younger one because of the education it provides: a sort of benchmark for all the to-be-aged gushu cakes we've been buying and, more importantly, because I'm interested in blending and pressing a few cakes for self-consumption. Besides blending, I'm finding "recipe" (what leaf material goes with what) an increasingly underrepresented art and I'd like to understand what an original Songpinghao producer did when left to his own devices with years to pick and choose maocha.